Innovation and University‐Firm R&D Collaboration in the European Food and Drink Industry

In the National Innovation System (NIS), knowledge is produced and accumulated through interactive innovation processes that are embedded in a national context, which in turn may help determine innovation. This paper investigates how product and process innovations in the European food and drink industry are affected by: (i) NIS structure; (ii) NIS output in terms of scientific publications and the supply of graduates; (iii) NIS cohesion and coordination; (iv) NIS scientific impact and specialisation. The main source of data on innovation by firms is the EU‐EFIGE/Bruegel‐UniCredit dataset. This is supplemented by information from the International Handbook of Universities, Eurostat and a bibliometric analysis of academic research output. Our results suggest that large research institutions in the public sector may well be detrimental to interaction between university and industry and to process innovation. The indicators used for public research assessment are not necessarily the most appropriate proxies of local knowledge spillovers.     

Acquisition vsus de novo entry: A theoretical appraisal

In this paper we generalize the approach developed in the context of banking competition by Gabszewicz et al. (2011). In an entry/acquisition game, we allow the potential entrant in a vertically differentiated market to offer a variant lying at any level of the quality ladder and playing a priori either the role of acquirer or acquired firm. This more general approach enables to give account of a wider set among the different types of acquisitions taking place worldwide. Not only does it constitute a natural toolbox for representing the choice between acquisition vsus greenfield considered in trade theory, but it also allows to capture the exchange of innovation's ownership via acquisition, as analyzed in the literature of innovation.     

To Acquire,or To Compete? An Entry Dilemma

In this paper we address the following question: is it more profitable, for an entrant in a differentiated market, to acquire an existing firm than to compete? We illustrate the answer by considering competition in the banking sector.     

Investigating a revised service transition concept

This paper seeks empirical validation of a revised conceptual framework of ‘service transition’ that re-interprets the adoption of advanced services by manufacturing firms as a progressive expansion, rather than a shift or migration, of the offering. Using cluster analysis and logistic regression, three groups of firms are identified with respect to the offering of four categories of services, ranging from basic to highly advanced services. Results indicate that advanced services predominantly complement, rather than replace, basic or less advanced services, supporting the revised conceptual framework. In doing so, the paper responds to the call for empirical research that quantitatively validates the conceptual foundations of the field of servitization. Nevertheless, the clusters identified provide a reference scheme to scrutinise potential synergies between sets of services that can complement and leverage each other.     

On uncertainty when it affects successive markets

In this paper, we examine how uncertainty can affect successive markets, when uncertainty can affect both upstream and downstream markets' conditions. The main result of the paper is that the equilibrium solution depends on how much dependent are the events.     

Time-to-market in vertically differentiated industries

This paper analyzes the optimal time to introduce a new product in a vertical differentiated market when the delay between innovation and market opening can be shortened through investments whose costs increase, the shorter the desired delay. The timing process is affected by the trade-off between being first and getting monopoly profits, and postponing entry for reducing time-to-market costs. We study the balance of these forces and how this balance is influenced by market structure. In our model, it is possible a priori to observe at the optimal solution both a quality-upgrading equilibrium (first entering the market with the low quality good and then marketing the high quality variant) and quality-downgrading equilibrium (first entering the market with the high quality good and then marketing the low quality variant) while in the existing published literature a quality-upgrading equilibrium is always observed.     

Value creation in banking through strategic alliances and joint ventures

A large number of studies (DeYoung et al., 2009) analyze merger outcomes in the financial industry, while other forms of business cooperation are still poorly investigated. Our paper examines results of strategic alliances and joint ventures in European and US banking over the period 1999–2009. First, we estimate abnormal returns around the deal announcement date and then these are regressed on a large set of explanatory variables. We show that joint ventures create shareholder value when involving non-banking financial partners and allowing banks to expand abroad, while international strategic alliances tend to destroy shareholder value.     

Is competition really bad news for cooperatives? Some empirical evidence for Italian producers’ cooperatives

In this paper, we analyse the nature of the relationship between market power and technical efficiency for producers’ cooperatives. More specifically we test two hypotheses: first, we evaluate the extent to which increasing market pressure may help producers’ cooperatives to improve technical efficiency to guarantee positive profits; second, we test whether higher technical efficiency induces producers’ cooperatives to have a larger market share. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of Italian conventional and cooperative firms for the Wine Production and Processing sector, using both frontier analysis and dynamic panel techniques. The results support the hypothesis that increasing market pressure can affect positively the cooperatives′ efficiency, while gains in technical efficiency do not seem to have any impact on the cooperatives’ market share.

Capacity expansion and dynamic monopoly pricing

We substitute to the plant size problem, as investigated by Chenery [Chenery, H., 1952. Overcapacity and the acceleration principle. Econometrica], a new version in which a profit-maximizing monopolist may combine its investment policy with a price policy adjusting demand upwards or downwards over time. We characterize the optimal price and investment policies. The optimal price policy determines an investment pattern either with constant increments of capacity over time, or becoming constant after a finite time. The existing capacity is either fully used at each instant between two investment dates; or the monopolist first quotes the instantaneous monopoly price and, thereafter, the price dampening instantaneous demand at the optimal installed capacity level.